


your threads sewn into me

by inquisitor_tohru



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Dreamsharing, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kissing, Literal Sleeping Together, Nightmares, POV Alternating, Past Torture, The Force, The Force Ships It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27302326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/pseuds/inquisitor_tohru
Summary: On his first night aboard theLady Luck,Finn dreamed of Exegol.
Relationships: Finn/Rey (Star Wars)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	your threads sewn into me

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 2 of _Spooky Wars Week:_ Nightmares and Dreamscapes.
> 
> A big thank you to L, for all her suggestions and encouragement ♥

On his first night aboard the  _ Lady Luck,  _ Finn dreamed of Exegol. He could never forget that sunless planet, shrouded with clouds that crackled with lightning and raw power. Up above, the sky was on fire.

But never before had he set foot on the dried out soil of the perpetually stormy planet, or encountered such an ominous presence. The highest point of the Sith Citadel scraped across the bellies of the dark clouds, and beneath the shadow of the monolith, it was easy to give into the darkness, and easier still to forget that there could ever be any other choice.

_ Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi. _

Finn reached down to his belt to draw his lightsaber, and pushed on, guided and encouraged by the burst of bright, blue light, until the ground beneath him began to descend.

He woke up, shaking and drenched with more sweat than when he'd been in full stormtrooper armor on Jakku. Jannah kneeled on the floor beside him, pressing a cool, wet cloth to his brow. 

"I still have nightmares about...back then, too," she said, "if you ever want to talk about it, or  _ not  _ talk about it, I'm up for a game of holo-chess. I'm getting pretty good now." Finn felt the genuine warmth radiating from her spirit, so very unlike the oppressive humidity on Exegol, and his heart ached for all she'd been through. All they were  _ both _ still going through. He didn't know how to tell her that wasn't what this was. Not when she found some comfort in his understanding.

"Okay, you're on," he said with a smile that looked far easier than it was, "but I'm not gonna go easy on you." Jannah grinned back, and the whole room seemed to light up.

"Good. Wouldn't want it any other way."

As she trudged through the smoking ruins of Tuanul's huts with her brothers and sisters in arms, Rey realised that she'd never considered how heavy stormtrooper armor was, or how hard it was to move. She crouched beside her fallen squadmate, fairly sure, as she looked into his fading hazel eyes, that he ought to still have had his helmet on. When his hand, hot with blood, reached up to touch her cheek, the village began to sink into the dunes, burying them all with it.

Rey woke to the taste of blood and sand in her mouth, an awful metallic grit that seemed to stick between her teeth. But the only sand on Ajan Kloss was by the jungle moon's oceans, far away from the small room she'd claimed aboard the  _ Tantive IV.  _ Sand didn't bother her- she'd grown up on  _ Jakku,  _ for R'iia's sake - but the echoes of grief and guilt lingered on.  _ She  _ hadn't known that trooper, and his name escaped her now, yet as she dreamed, Rey had been keenly aware of exactly who he was.

Still bleary-eyed, she rolled out of bed and reached beneath to grasp the hilt of her lightsaber. Rey normally slept better when she kept it close, as if it were the Force itself lulling her to sleep. She was also well aware that was, probably, not how the Force worked. 

She shrugged off the clothes she'd fallen asleep in, tossing them into the wicker laundry basket fashioned from reeds she'd gathered from one of the swampier parts of the jungle, and retrieved some clean ones from the dark wooden chest beside it. Before she left, wishing she could shrug off the nightmare so easily, she slipped on the jacket Finn had left her like a promise. It was comfortable, familiar, and still smelled faintly of the soap he used, though that had begun to mingle with her own scent. 

Somehow, right now, it was more of a comfort to her now than her own lightsaber. 

During his fourth nightmare on Jakku, Finn reached out. Outside of lightsaber duelling, his talents lay in empathy and forging connections, but he'd never tried using the Force to communicate with anyone so many lightyears away. He couldn't even be absolutely sure that Rey was still on Ajan Kloss, though it  _ was _ the most likely scenario. The war was over, but the Resistance still needed all the help they could get, and Rey worked well with Rose, Jayelle, and the other mechanics. Perhaps it didn't even matter how far away someone was while you were dreaming. 

When he'd followed the threads they'd woven into the Force together, Finn basked in the glow of her presence, a stark contrast to the harsh desert sun. He still quaked before Unkar Plutt, who seemed even bigger and meaner than Finn remembered him being, but Rey's presence helped keep him grounded. This time, when the quicksand came again, he was able to haul himself out. 

He heaved himself out of what passed for a bunk at the Resistance outpost on Batuu, rubbing his aching back. The mattresses were old and thin, and he'd already been sleeping poorly in the relative comfort of  _ Lady Luck's  _ bunks. (Not that it was difficult to be more comfortable than these rough and ready bunks, inexpertly hacked out of the ancient stone walls.)

But it wasn't just the sleeping arrangements. The nightmares were getting worse, more intense. He knew Rey was  _ safe,  _ but Finn wasn't an idiot. If he was having these nightmares, there had to be a  _ reason. _ She'd told him about her childhood on Jakku - about working for Unkar Plutt, and about the kids she built a ship with once - but the landscapes of his nightmares were far too detailed for his own unconscious to be stirring up, and he'd begun to realise why.

They weren't  _ his  _ nightmares at all.

Maybe deep down he'd known all along, but now the unflinching clarity of the revelation hit him like a luggabeast. Rey might be  _ safe,  _ but that didn't mean she was okay. He'd try the long-range comms again in the evening, assuming Kriki, their engineer, didn't run into any issues getting the parts she needed to fix them. But first, he and Lando were going with Jannah to meet her sister.

Rey was dreading going to bed that night, so when her personal comm beeped, almost as happily as BB-8 when the little droid spotted Poe from across the landing pad, it was a welcome distraction from Finn's nightmares. Even when the call was from Finn himself.  _ Especially  _ when it was from him. 

"Hi," she croaked, feeling almost shy as the warmth of his smile filled the comm's screen, which was ridiculous...because this was  _ Finn.  _ But their shared nightmares had perhaps revealed more of his past, of his present, than he'd been ready to share, and even if  _ she  _ hadn't had any control over it either, it made her feel as if she'd peeked at his diary. The Force, she'd come to realise, didn't particularly care about privacy or personal boundaries.

"Hey. I...um, are you okay?" His voice itself was reassuring, even if the tone wasn't. 

"I'm just tired," she said, trying to smile back, "I was worried about  _ you."  _ He frowned, though the smile didn't quite leave his eyes as he studied her.

"I'm fine, it's just...I've been having dreams about Jakku. Well, not dreams - more like nightmares, and-"

"I know," she said gently, "about Tuanal, and...your squadmate."

"Wait...what? I-" He paused, and she felt guilty for bringing him up. They'd talked about him before, but only briefly, never in so much detail. "Rey, I haven't dreamed about Slip for months. I dreamed about Unkar Plutt last night."

"You know," she said, eager to lighten things up even a little, "I'm  _ kind of _ offended." Thankfully, Finn chuckled.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna run away with the Blobfish."

"I felt you reach out to me last night. That's why I thought...but I couldn't hold on." It had still felt a little better though, knowing that she wasn't alone.

"Kinda like sand slipping through your fingers, right?" Finn ran a hand through his hair, now a fair bit longer than when they'd first met. It looked good.  _ He  _ looked good. "I know it's only been a week, but it's  _ so good _ to see your face." Rey was pretty sure she still had engine oil smeared across her face, but she believed him anyway.

"I've missed you, too. Rose is great company, but…" She trailed off, feeling shy again, though she wasn't quite sure why. "Maybe if we both try it?" She'd have been happier to stay up chatting to him all night instead of sleeping, but they both knew that even if they pumped themselves full of stims and stayed awake tonight, they'd still have to sleep eventually. 

"Yeah, that could work. It's  _ at least _ worth a shot, anyway." 

"Great! Then...sweet dreams, hopefully?"  _ If  _ it worked. Finn laughed again.

"Sure. Sweet dreams." 

She settled into bed, replacing her woolen blanket with Finn's jacket.

Despite their best efforts, sweet was not the word that immediately sprang to mind when he was strapped into an interrogation chair. The disembodied black mask that hovered above him was a faceless blur, an empty void. Knowing it wasn't real didn't make it any less terrifying and, at least on some level, it  _ had  _ been real for Rey. 

He felt her tug at the threads of their connection, but each time she did, it was harder for him to hold on...like he really _was_ reaching across the galaxy. 

When the sleek, black floor turned to oil, he didn't sink, but he didn't swim.

"I have an idea," said Rey, when he answered the comm in the morning, still groggy.

"You know me, I love ideas. Unless it involves another interrogation chair, in which case I think I'm good."

"Wha- oh, Finn, I'm so sorry." He could almost  _ feel _ her wincing, so he put on a brave face. His own mask.

"None of this is your fault.  _ Especially  _ not that." She looked like she wanted to suggest otherwise, but didn't. "So, tell me about your idea?"

Rey slung her backpack over her shoulder, hoping she was doing the right thing. Lugging all her gear around in a bag made her feel like she was back on Jakku, carrying her best finds back to Niima Outpost to clean up and then push under Unkar's nose for him to inspect, and invariably rip her off. But these were  _ her  _ things to keep. This was  _ her  _ choice.

Poe hadn't exactly been happy, but he'd been understanding, which was the main thing. He and Rose had seen her off at the shuttle, crushing her with the combined force of their embrace. It wasn't like she was leaving forever, or even for very long, but they were always like this. Rey was used to it now. She even kind of liked it. She'd miss them, too, but she needed to do this. 

The pilot's seat aboard the  _ Millennium Falcon  _ had never been as comfortable as it was now, the blue radiance of hyperspace never so welcoming.

This time when Finn drifted off, head rested upon his folded arms, there was no thick, sludgy oil or quicksand solidifying around him like clay. There was nothing more sinister than a small, muddy puddle, barely reaching his ankles, and he woke with a sharper, clearer mind than he'd had all week. He was still a little tired but he actually felt like he could face the day, and that was  _ before  _ Lando ushered him over to the landing pad, to see the  _ Millennium Falcon  _ in all its mismatched glory.

"Go on," Lando grinned, "we can spare you for a few hours. Besides, Chewie and I have a decades-old game of Dejarik to settle." 

"Good luck with that," Finn chuckled, recalling his own fond memories of holo-chess with Chewie and Poe, and, more recently, Jannah. (Even if Chewie had  _ totally  _ been cheating!) Lando gave him a friendly wink.

"I have a good feeling about this." So did Finn, as he raced towards the  _ Falcon's  _ entrance. 

He'd practised all the things he wanted to say to Rey when he saw her, which was kind of dumb - this was  _ Rey!  _ \- but in the end, he didn't need to say any of them. If he'd stopped to look at her he might have noticed how refreshed she looked as he drew nearer, drinking in his presence. Instead, he  _ felt  _ it as they tumbled into one another's arms, with the familiar feeling that everything had been leading to this moment. He felt the tension melt away from her, seeping out into the tapestry of the Force, into something old, something new.

When they opened and closed their mouths, no words came out, but Finn understood exactly what she was saying, and he knew Rey did, too, in the clash of lips, tongue, and teeth that followed. 

"Bed?" she gasped, freckled cheeks flushed as they parted. Finn nodded, bumping his forehead against hers. After spending his nights in what was essentially a niche in the temple's hollowed out wall, sleeping in a bed sounded amazing. Sleeping in a bed  _ with Rey  _ sounded better than amazing.

"Lead the way." He knew the  _ Falcon's _ corridors like the back of his hand, could guess which bunk she'd claimed, but this was  _ Rey's  _ ship. 

(He also  _ really  _ liked it when she was the one to take his hand, to take the lead.)

They all but collapsed together on the bed, a mass of tangled limbs, and soft kisses that became less tentative as they found their rhythm, then lazier as exhaustion caught up with them, lulling them into a blessedly dreamless sleep.


End file.
